South Korea The Latest To Introduce Three Strikes Plan

from the entertainment-industry-lobbyists-are-everywhere dept

Even with cutbacks, you have to hand it to entertainment industry lobbyists who are able to push through similar legislation around the world. The latest is that South Korea is joining the ranks of countries like New Zealand and France in pushing for a "three strikes" rule that would kick users off the internet after being accused (not found guilty) of unauthorized file sharing. Notice how this works, of course. Just last week, New Zealand officials were defending this plan by saying they were only doing what plenty of other countries had already done (which isn't true, since no one has made such a plan into law yet). But, by getting many countries to introduce vaguely similar laws, everyone can just claim "oh look, it's what country X is doing, and we need to do the same thing to stay current." It's how the entertainment industry has forced legal changes world wide for years.

There's something that gets me about the New Zealand case: why does country A even care what country B is doing with respect to copyright law? More to the point, why should the citizens of country A care, let alone buy it as an argument?

Obviously the interest in this is not coming from politicians themselves, let alone their constituents, but from lobbyists. That doesn't make the use of this excuse any more reasonable, though.